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Smart MetersPG&E files game-changing smart meter opt out plan. But will it work?
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Mar 25, 2011
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Quick Take: At last – although only at the insistence of a judge – PG&E has done something right with its smart metering program. As you will read below, it has offered up an opt-out program for customers who do not want smart meters (typically because they fear the health effects of the RF radio inside).
How do I know they got it right? Because neither side is happy… the sign of a good compromise. PG&E is charging to recoup the extra costs involved in manual meter reading. Some consumers are upset at the fees. Meanwhile, many in the utility camp are terrified of the long-term effects of allowing customer choice.
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To customers who fear RF radiation: you deserve to have an opt out option. You do not deserve to make the rest of us pay for it. Analog meters are more expensive to read and cut off your home from potential cost-saving measures such as outage detection and remote connect/disconnect.
To utilities who fear opt out: you need to let go of "barn door" and "crack in the dike." Some of you have "barn door" mentality. Customers are like livestock (your attitude implies). If we leave the barn door open and somebody slips out, the rest will stampede away.Reality: the way to retain customers is with service so great they want to stay, not by fencing them in.
As for the "crack in the dike" variant, it maintains that a few opt out customers will soon cascade into an unmanageable flood. Some customers will be in, some customers will be out, canceling out the benefits of a homogenous smart grid. If you let the crack-in-the-dike crowd play out their slippery slope fantasy to the end, it eventually ends (in their minds) with the collapse of modern civilization.
Relax. Few people will want to pay extra, especially when they read the strong scientific evidence that RF from meters pose no health risk. What's more, with a little help from its vendor partners, I am sure that PG&E can figure out an alternative technology (powerline? cellular?) that is cheaper than the manual meter reading they are proposing in this filing. – Jesse Berst
Pacific Gas & Electric will disable smart meters for customers concerned about health and safety hazards from meter radio wave emissions, but the utility's proposal to the California PUC on Thursday also included a kicker those customers probably won't like. The utility wants to charge an upfront fee plus an additional monthly charge or rate increase to cover the cost of turning off meter communications radios, manual meter readings and the additional cost to "strengthen" its SmartMeter network.
The CPUC told PG&E earlier this month that it had two weeks to provide an opt-out plan because of the continuing backlash and controversy over the new meters. While the commission at the time said it had seen no evidence that the meters' radio emissions were dangerous, it did want customers to have a choice, according to a news story in the Santa Rosa Press Democrat.
PG&E spokesman Jeff Smith told the newspaper, "For customers who want it, we will turn off the communications radio and that removes them from the grid. The ongoing fees cover the costs, primarily the labor but also the cost to strengthen the SmartMeter network."
The fee plus monthly charge options offered by PG&E include either an upfront fee of $270 and a $14 monthly charge or rate increase or an upfront fee of $135 and a $20 monthly fee or rate increase.
Heated complaints (and a lawsuit or two) about smart meter accuracy and health hazards have caused backlashes from California to Maine. While a variety of studies have said meter emissions fall well below federal protection standards and are safe, hardcore opponents just aren't accepting those results.
The PG&E proposal requires CPUC approval.
Where do you stand in the opt out controversy? Click the nearby QuickPoll to let us know and use the comment form below to explain.
More on this topic ...
EPRI study tackles smart meter safety issues
Smart meter angst continues in California
| Opt Out for Fee |
| Short and Sweet: I think PG&E's approach serves everyone's needs. I like it. |
| Andy Bochman - 03/25/2011 - 08:19 |
| Pg&e greed |
| Your survey leaves out a : make shareholders pay the cost. Not that I endorse that but it should be on the table You don't seem to really understand the outrage associated with this issue. It really threatens the utility and regulatory credibility. The costs proposed by PG&E are simply outrageous and should be dismissed out of hand by CPUC. And the terms for connection are equally outrageous Sorry if this undermines your grand scheme for universal smart meters. The customers are rebelling because they see nothing in it for them except risk. |
| Arthur O'Donnell - 03/25/2011 - 08:42 |
| Opt Out and be Punished |
| Short and Punitive. Let me get this straight: a smart meter costs between 3 and 10 times as much as a traditional meter depending on options and communications choices; installation costs 2-3 times the cost of a traditional meter; traditional meter reading fees are around $1 per month. So PG&E gets their program and gets to rate base the meters and all costs which makes the customers rates go up. Then because the customer opts out they get nailed with a large up front fee (about equal to the smart meter cost) and a punitive monthly fee that cannot possibly reflect actual meter reading costs. Sounds punitive to me, designed to force people into the program. IF PG&E wanted to be fair they would let you opt out ahead of the meter installation, lower your rate to the pre-program level and then charge a monthly meter reading fee equal to the actual costs of the read. OH, but wait, too many people would choose this route. The PUC should reject the proposal and require PG&E to come back with a more reasonable program, one that really has some choice in it. By the way, not all people will opt out because of RF, they just don't want PG&E or the State to have that mucvh access to their usage data. And if it was only about RF, cellular meters for the few customers concerned would be a far better opt out offer. |
| Richard Damiano - 03/25/2011 - 08:43 |
| PG&E Smart Meter Opt-Out |
| Do the folks who don't want smart meters because of fears about the RF radiation use cell phones? Wireless routers? RF remote controls for anything else? I'd like to see some hard numbers. I think it's an excuse to beat up on the utility. |
| Bob Lager - 03/25/2011 - 09:18 |
| Meters Opt out |
| 'Opt out and be Punished" gets it right. In 2009 PGE had meter reading costs of $44,102,420 and 4,578,151 residential customers. Charging all meter reading costs to residential customers comes to $9.63 per year or $0.80 monthly. Including the commercial customers lowers this to $0.71/month. This will increase to $14/month or $20/month, a 2000% or 2800% increase. Since this is California it seems reasonable. Will be interesting to see what the CPUC has to say. |
| Jeff Williams - 03/25/2011 - 09:31 |
| Meters Opt out |
| 'Opt out and be Punished" gets it right. In 2009 PGE had meter reading costs of $44,102,420 and 4,578,151 residential customers. Charging all meter reading costs to residential customers comes to $9.63 per year or $0.80 monthly. Including the commercial customers lowers this to $0.71/month. This will increase to $14/month or $20/month, a 2000% or 2800% increase. Since this is California it seems reasonable. Will be interesting to see what the CPUC has to say. |
| Jeff Williams - 03/25/2011 - 09:32 |
| Smart meters & solar production |
| We installed solar to get rid of endless increases in electric power costs and our system did just that, then PG&E charges us for power generation $198.00 per year they also charged us to distribution of the power we produced but didn't use another $190.00. Its all about the buck. |
| Dale Francisco - 03/25/2011 - 09:35 |
| Opt-Out for California |
| One interesting part of your analysis may require further elaboration. "Analog meters are more expensive to read and cut off your home from potential cost-saving measures such as outage detection and remote connect/disconnect." How do you explain the potential cost saving measure to the customer of remote disconnect. This surely benefits PG&E not customers. |
| Jeff Williams - 03/25/2011 - 09:42 |
| Cost Causation |
| A customer should pay based on the cost of serving them. Hopefully, these smart meters are saving the utility dollars. If a customer wants choice, give it to them but pay the appropriate rate. It probably costs PG&E $150 just to roll a truck and physically adjust a meter. |
| Jim Farrar - 03/25/2011 - 09:58 |
| smart grid meters |
| the only real way for these meters to reduce the overall cost of electricity is to make it higher priced during times when you need it - so your showers, your computer, the stay at home moms, the elderly, the unemployed will all pay more for using electricity during the day time. There is no "additional cost" associated with not having a smart meter. (unless oyu are assuming mandatory curtailments of the availability of electricity through these meters). -- by the way, who do you suppose pays for the costs of electricity while you all are enjoying smart meters at home -- your employer/a business who cannot reduce usage very much during the day (that's when you are working, using the employer's electricity and reading stuff like this online) and therefore pays higher rates. I am not opposed to smart meters but to suggest that some who don't want them will be penalized is totally wrong. Smart meters represent a shift of risk to the businesses and to the stay at home folks - your "savings" are on the backs of entities who are stuck paying the higher rates and cannot reduce consumption beyond a certain point. Everyone wants to support the concept but few have considered the social and economic implications - something that this publication could do -- they are great for the utilities but the benefits for the public are still unknown. |
| Ann Fisher - 03/25/2011 - 10:05 |
| Agree w/opt out charge, but intersting point |
| PG&E has to admit that they made their own bed in regards to the smart meter backlash ... No question, one main impetus for rolling out SG is to reduce meter reading costs. Those who feel wireless AMR is inappropriate for them should bear the cost of their choice. It seems to me PG&E's proposal is higher than their cost, but the objectors must pay extra. Here's my interesting point ... I've had solar panels installed on my home for almost 5 years now, with a smart meter. We cannot participate in PG&Es "SmartMeter" program because the meter attached to our home does not have wireless access! I understand this applies to ALL homes with generating capability ... so PG&E still must send a meter reader out to those homes. Another interesting point is that those who refuse the Smart Meters are still being accosted by their neighbors who have not opted out. In some residential neighborhoods a neighbor's meter may be closer to living spaces than their own! I certainly hope the folks who feel they will be harmed by the smart meter wireless signals have no cell or wireless phones or WiFi equipment in their homes! |
| Steve Buchholz - 03/25/2011 - 10:39 |
| What else can I opt out of? |
| Can I opt out of being irradiated by television signals and choose to have the entertainers come to my house and perform in person? Can I opt out of receiving my phone calls by cellular signal and choose to have a long wire run to my mobile phone with a crew following me everywhere with a spool of wire? Can I opt out of breathing public Califonia air because it sometimes smells bad and instead mandate a new California department of air deliver canned air to my home (a precisely regulated mix of oxygen/nitrogen mix of course with elaborate testing, certification, and penalties for non-compliance - and a department to run it - and a new tax to pay for it)? Can I opt out of receiving public water because I hear it might contain 0.0000001% of carcinogenic substances and require the water company to deliver bottled water to my home? Can I opt out of stopping at traffic lights because I hear the color red might cause a siezure and require that stop lights I might be near use purple instead of red? |
| Erich W. Gunther - 03/25/2011 - 11:07 |
| Metering reading costs are bogus |
| This is no more than corporate extortion. First of all, I never asked PG&G to replace my meter to begin with. Now, they want me to pay to get my old meter back? I don't understand why PG&E is sending a person to my house every single month to read the meter. They could instead adopt what has been taking place in many European countries for the last 40 years. At our house in Europe, the consumer reads the meter once a year and enter the KWh on the utility website or mail in a reply card. That's it. Based on the yearly consumption, the utility will prorate the bill in quarterly installments. Simple and easy. No reading required by the utility unless they suspect fraud. When next year rolls around, your new rate will be based on prior year's consumption, so if you installed a sauna or a sun tanning bed, your bills will go up. If you use less, you get a refund. |
| Jan Sondergaard - 03/25/2011 - 11:12 |
| Smart Meters NOT needed for conservation |
| Jeff Williams is correct about remote connect/disconnect and Jesse has missed the boat thinking that smart meters are necessary for cost saving measures. Deleware Electric Cooperative for several years has run a very successful program of peak demand reduction by asking their members to help. They send emails and make announcements on the radio simply asking members to use less, and guess what, THEY DO, to the tune of several million dollars in savings every year for the utility and the member. But they do it the old fashioned way, they communicate and work with their customer for a common goal. No forced requirement to shed load and no smart meter required. Are they also doing smart meters, yes and they do have a load control program as well, but the key is they work with the customer and the load control program is definitely opt in. PG&E and most other IOU's need to learn the lesson of customer service and cooperation. |
| Richard Damiano - 03/25/2011 - 11:22 |
| Smart Meters and Radio Waves |
| Those who worry about radio wave exposure from smart meters don't seem to realize that they already live in a virtual sea of radio waves no matter where on the planet they live. AM and FM radio, regular satellite TV, cell phones, WIFI networks in homes and businesses, GPS, baby monitors, commercial and military satellite communications--the list is endless. You're in the radio wave soup even if you don't personally use a single wireless communications device. Why doesn't PG&E simply make that message part of their PR campaign? |
| Jay Shapiro - 03/25/2011 - 11:45 |
| Meter reading Costs are NOT bogus |
| To all of the mathematicians responding to the 14 or 20 dollar rate to read meters....you are overlooking the fact that PG&E has to still maintain an active fleet and personnel to read the few meters that will opt out. Amortizing the costs of 44 million over 4.5 million meters is what it costs when everyone needs their meter read manually. If only 2% opt out, you need to amortize the total expense of maintaining a fleet and personnel to read 80,000 or so meters. The efficiency in reading meters strung out over a service area is poor at best and the reduction in overhead will NOT be in proportion to those who have opted out. My suspicion is that PG&E has hard data to support the additional fees - which should be entirely covered by those whom do not want to participate in the program. Another item overlooked is the cost associated with being able to provide the radio turn off to begin with. This is product development and there are real and tangible implementation costs associated with this to satisfy a relatively small proportion of the customer base. Also, to respond to Jeff Williams post regarding disconnects - these types of meters benefit the customer who doesn't need to pay an installation or pull fee when moving or transferring a service. Anytime a professionally trained person comes to your house, for any reason, it costs someone money. It today's service oriented economy, the consumer pays for that service. |
| Jim Carr - 03/25/2011 - 11:54 |
| True Cost of Service? |
| One of the main benefits of smart meters is the ability to provide consumers with dynamic pricing, which should more accurately reflect the cost of electricity. Consumers may be used to all-you-can-eat rate structures, but they to understood that PG&E maintains about 2.5GW in peak capacity, just to serve load maybe 100 hours per year. This equates to billions of $$$ every year. PG&E customers are paying for this, they just don't see it. If a consumer wants to opt out of a smart meter, then fine, but the surcharge should be based on what CPP costs they would be likely to incur if they had a smart meter and did not react to dynamic pricing signals -- which is probably a few hundred $$$ per year for an average household. |
| George Karayannis - 03/25/2011 - 13:04 |
| Smart Meter opt out |
| Customer fees to opt out of smart meter usage is outrageous-and predictable. Customers may have concerns about smart meters-but PG&E has never undertaken an outreach, or education program about them. People don't know how to judge their TOU consumption, because no one ever came to their door to explain it. Customer trust in PG&E is at an all time low.: Hinckley Part 2 (Erin Brokovich redux); San Bruno explosions and subsequent cover up; Prop 16-48 million ratepayer $ down the drain; $4 billion requested in rate increases; PG&E employee as smart meter undercover agent; threatening CCA's-they have a lot to do before confidence in the company is to return. Fees to opt out is not the way to do it. |
| Cynthia Wooten - 03/25/2011 - 15:49 |
| 2000% - fair enough |
| Jim has it absolutely right. The future costs of manually reading meters, for say only 1 in 50 houses distributed randomly, will not be even close to 1/50th of the current costs of reading all houses. Jeff's statement of 2000%, or about 20 times the current price sounds about fair to me, from doing a crude mental approximation. My rationale is fairly simple: you'll have roughly as much total driving time as you do today (since you have to cover the same area). But of course there will be a much lower total 'reading' time. I don't have the split of costs between reading and driving (and of course the fleet costs) handy. But being generous, I'll assume the total cost of all of these combined will fall by a fair amount, perhaps even 50% or more. But it won't be even close to a pro-rated amount (which would 98% lower for the above example). Amortising 50% of the original cost across 1/50th of the consumers gives a 25-fold increase for those that remain. of course you might predict a higher percentage will opt-out, and you might estimate a slightly higher %saving. but you'll still be in the same ballpark of perhaps tenfold or more increase. And while I'm thinking about it, there are other factors most comments don't consider. e.g. 1. you still have all the fixed ITsystems costs, which won't drop at all. 2. the reading time for a house won't stay the same. it takes longer to get to/from a truck to a house (normally insignificant when amortised across perhaps 100 or more reads) 3. If you 'manually' read a smart meter, potentially for half-hour or other time-of-use data, then how much longer do you think it will take to manually download the data from each meter into a handheld device versus typing in the single figure as today? Certainly I've seen figures of a minute or two demonstrated in the past, and that may be the case here. 4. The up-front cost of turning the radios off is more questionable - it depends how the meters have been designed/programmed. So this cost may not be big, but on the other hand it is feasible that an engineer would need to do something manually for each meter. If so, the costs really would be high. And as Jim said, if the manufacturer actually has to make a hardware or firmware change to allow this, then development and testing costs will also need to be amortised across the few opt-outs. No doubt PG&E has done their sums; after all the CPUC will scrutinise and challenge them. The outcome will be interesting |
| Kevin House - 03/25/2011 - 16:41 |
| RF scare? How about DECT 6.0-Series 3-Handset Cordless |
| Wireless electronic devices and health From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia The World Health Organization has acknowledged that electromagnetic fields (EMFs) are influencing the environment (but not people), and that some people are worried about possible effects.[1] In response to public concern, the World Health Organization established the International EMF Project in 1996 to assess the scientific evidence of possible health effects of EMF in the frequency range from 0 to 300 GHz. They have stated that although extensive research has been conducted into possible health effects of exposure to many parts of the frequency spectrum, all reviews conducted so far have indicated that exposures are below the limits recommended in the ICNIRP (1998) EMF guidelines, covering the full frequency range from 0–300 GHz, and do not produce any known adverse health effect.[citation needed] International guidelines on exposure levels to microwave frequency EMFs such as ICNIRP limit the power levels of wireless devices and it is uncommon for wireless devices to exceed the guidelines. These guidelines only take into account thermal effects, as nonthermal effects have not been conclusively demonstrated.[2] The official stance of the Health Protection Agency is that “[T]here is no consistent evidence to date that WiFi and WLANs adversely affect the health of the general population”, but also that “...it is a sensible precautionary approach...to keep the situation under ongoing review...”.[3] |
| J.R. Stewart - 03/25/2011 - 18:53 |
| Whipping the Customers...Again... |
| PG & E is using a tactic borne of the same "Big Brother" mentality that earned them a lack of trust from consumers in the first place. Their smart meter plan punishes customers who choose not to have a smart meter. Yes, there are greater long-term costs to using manual vs. smart meters, and yes, someone has to pay for this, and typically it's the consumer. However, this smart meter plan uses "negative reinforcement" by forcing consumers to pay fees and added costs for not choosing a smart meter. Positive reinforcement has been shown to be much more effective, and generate the trust between two parties that PG & E will need going forward to implement smart grid plans. An example of positive reinforcement would be offering a valuable service, or better information about energy usage, to ONLY consumers with smart meters. That way, those with manual meters would WANT to get a smart meter, instead of being "whipped" into doing it. Positive reinforcement is used successfully in the cable industry, the software services industry, among others. Positive reinforcement would help PG & E rebuild the trust with their customers, and save money in the long run, since customers would eventually move to smart meters - everybody wins. |
| Heather Campbell - 03/27/2011 - 11:20 |
| Opt Out of RF Meter |
| PG&E should install a telephone modem to the meters of those that opt out. This method resolves the RF concern and maintains Smart Meter capabilities. The additional charge would pay for the cost of the hard wire link and preserve the ability for remote metering and other Smart Grid services as they become available. |
| Steve Lafond - 03/28/2011 - 09:16 |
| Opt Out |
| I feel people need choices, if they want to opt out, let them. I just don't want to have to pay for one's need to have custom service, let those that want custom service pay for the service they use, including all the back office and logistics costs associated with that level of service. Fear of the unknown is so powerful! |
| Tom - 03/28/2011 - 14:44 |
| Torture and Extortion are Federal Crimes |
| How Smart is it to Extort, Torture, Sicken, Bully, Intimidate, and Harm innocent babies, children, families, elders, and those sick with cancer, heart conditions, pace-makers, disabilities, and people living at the poverty level? How many fires will be started, and how many more will die due to the fact that dangerous Smartmeters are not UL listed and were unconstitutionally "deployed" so rapidly without safe or appropriate environmental clearance. Indictments are pending for those responsible for harming, and trying to extort millions of innocent customers. |
| Robert Davis, Esq. - 03/28/2011 - 22:03 |
| Why Stop at Smart Meters? |
| Why stop with smart meters? We could force Sony to resume selling Betamax at the price it was last manufactured, require AT&T to resume renting black dial telephones at the same rate they charged in 1960, and mandate that Ford resume selling Model Ts for $600. |
| John Morley - 03/29/2011 - 08:25 |
| Make PLC Meters the Opt-Out Technology? |
| Why not use PLC meters as the opt-out alternative? Opt-out customers would simply pay the extra cost of a second meter type and some factor of the additional cost to install and maintain two AMI headends. (Many utilities have a additional AMI headends anyway for C&I customers?) |
| David Locke - 04/08/2011 - 07:36 |
| who actually owns the meter? |
| "I never asked PG&G to replace my meter to begin with. Now, they want me to pay to get my old meter back?" Keep in mind that the meter is actually owned by the power company. |
| Mark McGarry - 04/08/2011 - 10:12 |
| Never asked for it in the first place |
| I agree with Tom. Choices. Nobody likes to be told what to do, and on top of it, be forced to pay for it. I didn't have to pay an arm and a leg for meter reading before the SM program, so why should I now? Oh yeah, to recoup the cost of PG&E's greatest blunder in the first place. |
| Chad Palmer - 04/23/2011 - 17:48 |
| Radiation Reality |
| Go to: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uRejDxBE6OE&feature=player_embedded#at=240 for an eye-opener of smart meter radiation in Stratford, Connecticut. Why would anyone want hundreds of thousands of these in tightly-packed neighborhoods of zero-lot homes packed together? |
| Jerry Ballew - 04/23/2011 - 19:22 |
| Doctor's note... |
| It would be prudent to have a physician’s note stating that an opt-out patient might have health issues w/ the meter/technology as per a preexisting condition such as migraines, etc. AND that the utility MAY NOT assess further charges other than the normal fees and rates. |
| Buck Sumervil - 07/20/2011 - 10:48 |
| Smart is dumb |
| Idiots, its the effing privacy issue that matters. |
| Candace Didard - 07/26/2011 - 19:59 |
| It's not fair |
| Wasn't there a couple proved that the smart meter overcharged their bills? I truly believe the smart meter is not accurate and there is no way anyone can challenge PG&E since they are the one who maintain the smart meter. You can't put a pig in front of my house and said it's yours now, and now charging me to remove it? |
| Mark Liu - 09/15/2011 - 20:13 |
| Maybe a simple solution? |
| This might help people concerned with smart meter radiation: www.smartmeterband.com |
| Smart Meter Band - 11/02/2011 - 10:15 |
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